Help Wanted: Staffing the New U.S. Development Strategy in Pakistan

If the new $7.5 billion U.S. aid program in Pakistan is to be effective, USAID needs the resources and personnel to implement it effectively. Recognizing this simple truth, the agency is carrying out a ‘civilian surge’ that will increase the number of USAID staff in Pakistan by 60% from March to October (to a total of 245 employees in all). But as Nancy Birdsall underscores in a new open letter to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, more people alone is not a solution. What is needed is a staffing strategy that matches the new American approach to promoting development in Pakistan.Key to this issue is that the United States isn’t just spending more aid money in Pakistan. It is simultaneously attempting a significant shift in how it approaches its relationship with the country. The goal is a true partnership with Pakistani stakeholders—the contours of which are visible in the ongoing Strategic Dialogue process and in the efforts being made to direct as much U.S. aid as can be spent well through Pakistani institutions. On the whole, this strategy seems on target. Aid must be coupled with local support and good policies if it is to have real and lasting impacts.However, this shift means that USAID is being asked to go far beyond merely designing, implementing, and monitoring development projects. It is being asked to make its mission truly collaborative (both with the federal and provincial governments and with other donors). And if this sort of collaboration is truly what U.S. development strategy is about, then as Nancy emphasizes in her open letter, “Ongoing policy dialogue and decision-making must not be jobs reserved solely for teams of expert visitors from Washington.” USAID’s mission in Pakistan should be given the personnel, the resources, and the responsibility to make this sort of dialogue business as usual. That means more sectoral and policy experts, more officers with experience in negotiating with partner governments, and more officers with extensive on-the-ground experience in Pakistan.In her open letter, Nancy delivers four recommendations for how U.S. staffing policies in Pakistan and in Washington can be tailored to the new development strategy. Summarized, her key points are:-          Improving staff continuity is critical. The prevalence of one year tours (of which at most 10 months are spent in country) is highly damaging to the ability of USAID officers to build solid relationships and engage in long-term negotiations. USAID should perhaps create a program that allows USAID officers to serve a rotation of five years on Pakistan issues (split between the field and Washington), similar to the Pentagon’s Afghanistan-Pakistan Hands program. And, in the interim, while hiring outside experts on limited term personal services contracts is necessary to fill USAID’s gaps in experience and expertise, the restrictions on these contracts might be relaxed to allow these experts to serve for a longer period of time.-          Highly-skilled Pakistani national staff can fill gaps in what American USAID officers are able to accomplish. They can go places U.S. officers can’t, and they can provide both in-depth local knowledge and long-term institutional memory. However, USAID is not as competitive as it could be in hiring and retaining skilled Pakistani staff. As Nancy writes, “USAID should have greater flexibility to hire foreign national staff at higher levels and with more competitive salaries, to invest in their training, and to offer them attractive opportunities for career advancement.”-          Development needs a seat at the table in Washington. In discussions of broader Pakistan strategy in Washington, it’s important to have someone representing a development perspective—independent of security concerns, and focused only on Pakistan, not Afghanistan. It is not at all clear that this need is currently being met. At present, no single member of Ambassador Holbrooke’s team is solely responsible for the Pakistan development strategy. Hiring such an advisor—or making sure that a representative from USAID who focuses solely on Pakistan is present at discussions of U.S. strategy in the country—would be a very positive step.-          Strong institutions for interagency coordination are important. A very broad range of U.S. government agencies are a part of the development strategy in Pakistan, especially as it relates to policy dialogue with the Pakistani government. They should know what each other are doing, and should be in closer contact with the robust community of Pakistan policy researchers. An idea raised in an earlier open letter for regular forums on U.S. policy in Pakistan might be one way to create a focal point for such coordination and communication—but, to echo the previous point, it will be important at these forums to carve out time specifically for Pakistan and for development strategy, independent of other concerns.As Nancy writes in her letter, when it comes to U.S. civilian staffing, “In Pakistan and in Washington, the solution is not simply more people, but the right people supported by the right policies.” Having enough people to design, implement, and monitor aid projects is important. But, to carry out a development strategy based in partnership with Pakistani institutions, having the policy experts able to engage in careful dialogue is just as critical. As the United States deploys the team that will carry out its ambitious assistance strategy, the Obama administration must build that team with an eye towards what it is being asked to do.